20/12/2011 World Business Report

impose austerity measures. Now for the latest financial news

with Sarah. Thank you for joining us on World

Business Report. The powerhouse of Europe braces itself for bad news.

Germany's all-important business sentiment Indicator looks set for a

fall. Apples caused a victory in its

patent row with HTC. The Taiwanese firm faces an import ban.

HTC may have lost a patent case to Apple is it a win for the firm?

We get an important a snapshot of the prospects for Europe's biggest

economy today. Germany's survey on business sentiment is released and

it is likely to make unsettling reading. Many are expecting the

report to show a fall in December just as the world looks to Germany

to help we the eurozone out of its crippling debt crisis. How worried

should we be? Let's cross to Berlin, where we are joined by a Chief

Economist. Thank you for joining us. I mentioned there that we are

expecting a fall in at this latest survey, another for I should say,

because we have had several months of business sentiment for it. What

are your members telling you about how they are feeling? If you ask

German enterprises, they give you a different picture. It is separated

into it two pass. On the one hand the currency situation is assessed

quite well. -- two parts. They give you the prospect for the next year.

They become more pessimistic. This is the current situation. We will

look forward to what our colleagues will tell us today. So they are

feeling more pessimistic about 2012. What kind of assessment are you

giving of the economic growth prospects for Germany next year?

2011 will be a second boom year. We estimate a gross rate of 3% for

this year. We are still optimistic that we can reach 1% in the next

year. It is true that the pessimistic signs are growing.

There could be one quarter or two quarters of negative gross rate in

2012. -- gross rate. Some surveys are suggesting we might not see 1%.

We might see 0.5% only. How important will those exports be

going forward? In China there has only been an eight or 9% slow --

slowing of growth. German companies are still selling goods, equipment

and machinery to emerging markets, fast growing markets. This will

continue next year. There will be some stimulus. There will be some

impact from these markets to our economy. Thank you very much.

Today Brussels turns its attention to the growing number of young

people in Europe who cannot find work as the financial crisis bites.

The EU is gearing up to provide more aid to help member states

tackle youth unemployment by helping unqualified levers back

into education or vocational training. The commission wants to

back workplace training and apprenticeships. This is how young

people once learned their trade, on the job as apprentices, keeping the

wheels turning. But now it is drying up, especially in the

southern European countries like Spain. One model for the future is

the German apprenticeship system, where classroom learning is

tailored to feed the economy. These students will land long-term jobs.

Students do it knowledge they are the lucky ones. We have a lot of

schools. We can obtain vocational training and apprenticeships.

Germany knows of these comparative advantage. We must have the right

skills. Education and training are key to the effort. That is why they

have such a prominent role in our strategy to lead Europe out of the

crisis and on the path to sustainable growth. With one in

five young people now unemployed across Europe, Brussels is trying

to rationalise different schemes, many of them administered through

the European Social Fund. But the difficulty providing more

apprenticeships is that often employers cannot often -- cannot

offer jobs at the end. It is only economic growth which will make a

big dent in his UN and Symond. -- in young people's UN and Symond.

Europe pean countries have agreed to provide 150 billion euros to the

IMF. This money could be used to help struggling countries. Germany,

Italy and Spain as well as some others offer support but Britain's

decision not to take part meant finance ministers failed to reach

their target sum of 200 billion euros.

AT&T is a banding its bid to buy eight Deutsche Telecom T-Mobile USA.

It comes after US authorities moved to block the deal as anti-

competitive. AT&T said it would have to take a charge as a result

of dropping the offer and is worried about a shortage of air

waves. A A US federal agency is siding

with apple and ordering an import ban on HTC phones that infringe one

of its patents. The Trade Commission says the ban will take

effect from next April. HTC is a major maker of phones that use

Google Android operated a software. Let's stay with that story. Let's

join a Rico Hizon who is in Singapore. It is a victory for

Apple but it is a narrow victory. HTC is claiming that it is not bad

news for them. Absolutely. It may be a setback,

but the Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer sees this as a win. In

a statement, they said the ruling was a win for the firm and they are

pleased with the determination and respects the decision of the ITC.

The patent is related to a small feature which allows users to grab

the embedded information such as a phone number and to do something

with it such as make a call. said that it would completely

remove this from all of their phones soon. One a technology

analyst I spoke with earlier said this removal would allow her HTC

would -- would allow HTC to avoid disruption and it would have

minimal effect on sales. Despite the news, HTC shares jumped more

than 5% today. It is also being helped along by the firm

announcement that it would buy back 10 billion of its shares between

December 20th and February 19th. A Thank you.

Let me show you what is happening with the markets. You might

remember one Monday there were falls in the South Korean market.

But it has recovered. The Kospi is up by 1%. A similar picture in

Tokyo. We saw falls on Monday it but they have managed something of